


Turning Tables

by ManiLea



Category: DCU (Comics), Superman (Comics), Trinity (Comics)
Genre: Adoption, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 05:01:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14537217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ManiLea/pseuds/ManiLea
Summary: Clark and Lois are dead, and Bruce and Diana find themselves the joint guardians of 10-year old Jonathan Kent. Somehow they have to form a stable family unit for Jon while continuing their responsibilities and dealing with their own loss.





	1. Isolation

**Author's Note:**

>   * The plot is based on the rom-com _Life as We Know it_ (2010).
>   * The circumstances of Clark and Lois' deaths are loosely based on _Superman: Action Comics vol. 6_.
>   * Clark and Lois weren't planning to move to Metropolis at the time.
>   * Bruce and Diana are both single.
> 


The cathedral emptied, leaving only the seven members of the Justice League standing behind the black coffin. The government had been allowed their state funeral and the League had taken part in all the pomp and ceremony as instructed, but as the named family of the deceased, Superman’s body was theirs. They had not decided what they would do with it, only that burying it apart from Lois’ body was unthinkable.

“Everyone to the watchtower,” said Bruce. “Meeting in five.”

Victor opened a boom tube, and Barry, Arthur, Simon and Jessica filed through. Diana tucked the coffin under her arm. It felt inappropriate, but it was easier than attempting to teleport it in sync with another person.

Once at the watchtower, she carried it to the long store room where Lois’ coffin lay. The caskets were identical, except that Superman’s was engraved with the symbol of the House of El and Lois’ had a very small inscription with her name and the years of her birth and death. 

Diana wiped her eyes and returned to the control room. Her teammates were all sitting along the curved benches that ran parallel to the windows on two sides of the room. They never all sat down together. They never had the time or the inclination. Diana placed herself on the end of one, next to Arthur.

Barry summarised the events based on what he and Bruce had extracted from Amanda Waller, the Suicide Squad and the wreckage of the black vault. Lois had been sent by the Daily Planet to investigate the sudden appearance of the vault and had been sucked inside. Superman had been led there separately by his foe, the Cyborg Superman, but had found himself face to face with General Zod, who had used the vault to escape from the Phantom Zone. As soon as Superman had realised his wife was trapped inside the vault, he had obliterated it using his laser vision and freed her.

None of them had known that the Suicide Squad was already working behind the scene to contain the situation. They did not know about the kryptonite bomb planted in Zod’s brain. And all the Suicide Squad saw was that their only known route of getting Zod back to the Phantom Zone had been shut down. They had detonated the bomb, and it had taken Clark and Lois with it.

None of the other League members had arrived until it was too late. It raised questions. Were they to share intel with the Suicide Squad and, by extension, the government? Were they to spy on one another in case a situation escalated? Were each of their enemies to be dealt with collectively? Arthur was adamant that none of them would have anything to do with threats to Atlantis, even if his life was at stake.

If Superman had been too proud to let anyone else take on his enemies, the rest of them certainly were.

“What’s happening to their kid, by the way?” asked Simon. “Where is Jon?”

“He’s staying with me,” replied Bruce.

“That’s something else we need to discuss,” said Victor. “Superman left a will with me, regarding what was to happen to his legacy as a superhero and a son of Krypton.” 

A document flashed onto the main monitor entitled ‘Last Will and Testament of Kal El’.

“Why have I not seen this?” demanded Bruce.

“It exists only on my server and in the Fortress of Solitude. It’s not on the watchtower network. I believe he didn’t want you to see it prior to his death.” Victor scrolled the document down. “In most cases it is straightforward. All assets have been left to his son: the Fortress, his uniform, his dog and so on. As for Jonathan himself, in the event that Superman and his wife both die, Batman and Wonder Woman are to be assigned joint custody.”

Silence filled the room as everyone squinted at the text. There was no ambiguity in it. Clark and Lois’ signatures were both underneath.

“Joint? How is that going to work?” asked Diana.

“I advised him against it, but he was convinced that only the two of you together could give his son the care and guidance he needs.”

“It makes sense for him to continue to live with me. Diana can visit.”

“You are not going to bring him up as one of your robins, Bruce,” said Diana emphatically. “He has had an ordinary life so far and gone to school like a normal child, and it will stay that way.”

“He’s not a normal child. I have been involved in his training. I would know.”

“I can train him too and I have a smaller place, where he can feel at home–”

“– by uprooting him to the other side of the Atlantic? Besides, your house has glass on every side and no security. What are the press going to think when they see that a boy with freeze breath has moved in with Wonder Woman? They’ll work out his identity within an hour of him moving in.”

“You are not going to send a child chasing criminals around Gotham! You know how Clark felt about that. It would be a complete betrayal. They took every measure to teach him what it is to be human first and a hero second.”

Diana glared across at Bruce and he glared back. The rest of the League looked miserable. 

“Maybe the two of you can discuss this afterwards,” said Arthur.

The final point on the agenda was whether they needed to reinforce the team. The consensus was that they did, and Bruce suggested approaching Martian Manhunter, since he had powers that were on a par with Superman’s. The Lanterns were tasked with seeking him out. No one wanted to discuss the events further and so they dispersed.

Bruce went to read the details of the will on the small monitor. Diana walked over to him and gently put a hand on his arm. “I don’t want to fight with you about this. We have to find a solution that is best for Jonathan.”

Bruce swung his chair to face her and nodded. “He mentioned to Alfred that his teachers and friends in Hamilton will be wondering where he is. We have to keep up the illusion that Clark and Lois Smith died in a road accident.”

One of the first things the Justice League had done after Superman’s death was announced was to stage Clark and Lois’ death as ordinary civilians. Victor had uploaded a fake report to Hamilton County Police’s records, and Barry had sneaked a brief statement into the local news agency. Diana had flown Lois’ car out of the farm, pummelled it until it looked like it had hit another car and dropped it off on a mountain trail. It had been cathartic to imagine for a minute that the car was responsible for her friends’ deaths and not she or anyone else.

Bruce had picked up Jon from school and broken the news to him.

“I bought the property, so Jon can have it when he’s older,” said Bruce. “All their stuff is still there. We could move in together for a month or so, sort through their belongings and figure out how to manage this in the long term. I’ll pretend to be Clark’s best friend from school – we can pretend to be a couple.”

Diana rarely spent more than a few of her waking hours in her house at a time, and with a job that spanned the globe, a move would barely affect her. It was surely preferable to Jon having to go through his grief in a Gothic mansion full of Bruce’s raucous teens. 

“If Jonathan agrees to it, I am in.”

The next day Diana received a text message to say that Jon had approved the plan and they could move in at the weekend if nothing more urgent came up. 

Etta Candy called on Friday, asking her to accompany a convoy of lorries out of a war zone in central Africa. The convoy reached the port city without incident the next day and Diana was able to go home. She filled a bag with clothes, cleared out the fridge and locked up, and was on the Kent farm before dusk.

The barn doors were open and Diana glimpsed the black sheen of the Flying Fox. Bruce and Jon came out, arms laden with boxes and bags. Diana gave Jon a squeeze and took the rest of the luggage from the plane.

Inside, dishes were piled up in the kitchen sink and every national newspaper from five days ago was spread over one half of the large table. There was the smell of rotting garbage and the small window at the back had been left open, letting in flies. 

They tidied up and Bruce brought out three food packages to heat up in the microwave. It had not occurred to Diana to get anything for dinner.

“What is that?”

“Five-spice roasted quail with celery and shallot puree.”

Jon rolled his eyes behind Bruce’s back. Diana stifled a smile.

The meal was delicious, but Jon left a heap of celery on the edge of his plate and Diana wasn’t sure if she was supposed to make him eat it. She had heard that it was mostly water and not very many vitamins.

“You can take the guest room,” said Bruce.

“All right. You can have their room.”

“No thanks. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

The couch was not long enough for Bruce to be able to lie comfortably. He simply wasn’t intending to sleep.

“I’m sure you can find some spare blankets and make a mattress on the floor,” Diana suggested. Bruce shook his head. “Or you can sleep in the guest room with me. It’s a double bed.”

“No.”

Diana knew he would refuse because of the strange etiquette of man’s world, but she couldn’t resist teasing him. “We’ve seen each other asleep before, many times. I don’t think there’s anything left to hide.”

“No.” Bruce rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s… distracting.”

After dinner he opened up a laptop and let a program run while they cleared up and washed the dishes. An orange and yellow blob was shown moving across a black and blue multi-dimensional map. He was tracking the energy signature of the Cyborg Superman. Diana wanted to ask him what he was hoping to achieve, but she didn’t want to start talking about Superman’s enemies in front of Jon.

Instead, she dried the bowls that were on the draining board and put them in the topmost cupboard, where there was space.

“Those bowls don’t go there,” There was an edge to Jon’s voice. “And that’s the clothes dryer, Bruce, not the trash compactor. I dunno how you guys made a mess of every single tea towel we own on a microwaved meal, but I guess you’ll have to wash them all before tomorrow.”

Bruce turned to stare at him. “Is that all?”

“Yeah. I’m going to bed.” Jon stomped up the stairs.

Bruce caught Diana’s worried expression. “This is nothing. Wait until he’s a teenager.”

Diana went to check on him anyway. He was sitting up in bed with the side lamp on, playing on a tablet. He turned it off when he saw her.

“I have an idea. Tomorrow you can give us a tour of the house and show us how everything works here.”

Jon looked slightly ashamed. “We don’t have to. I’m sorry. I always thought you were the coolest people in the world. I just– it’s not the same as having my mum and dad.”

“You do not need to apologise. We cannot be them, but we will do our best. I promise.”

Jon hugged her.

It was comforting to know that Jon was next door and Bruce was downstairs. Diana had forgotten how lonely her life had become since her relationship with Steve Trevor had ended two years ago, but the empty hours of the past few nights had made it harder to ward off images of exploding green shards and the scattered remains of people she had loved.


	2. Denial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a lot of filler fluff, but I like the idea of Bruce and Diana struggling to behave like normal people and being domestically useless together, okayy.

A letter arrived from Jon’s school about an upcoming class trip to a watermill. He had signed up for it a month ago, but his teacher wanted to check whether he still wanted to go, with all that had happened to him. Diana went upstairs to talk to him.

A sniffling sound was coming from Jon’s room and Diana hesitated, racking her brain for something that might comfort him. There was no point in telling him that it was all going to be okay, because for the present, nothing was okay.

“Any other questions?” Bruce was there with him.

Diana peered into the room, staying in the shadow of the unlit hallway. They were sitting side by side on Jon’s bed. Jon was hugging his knees to his chest and wiping his tears on them. Bruce had his legs outstretched and was staring at the floor.

“What if something like that happens to you and Diana?”

Bruce’s face contorted slightly but Jon didn’t see it. “There will always be people who care about you. Even when you think you’ve fallen down a black hole, far from everything that made sense, someone will reach out to you. You just have to let them help you out.”

There were so many layers of him – logical, distrustful, insensitive, perceptive, domineering – that Diana sometimes forgot that Bruce’s life was built around protecting others from his own trauma. He never really could succeed, and now Jon was the child he had been. As much as she loved Bruce, she dreaded to think that Jon might ever become that obsessive, that self-destructive.

“Like the Justice League?”

“Yeah. Like the League.”

The doorbell rang. Diana hurried to answer it, but halfway down the stairs Bruce ran past her.

“Looks like the neighbours. Make sure there’s nothing suspicious lying around.”

Diana snatched up her lasso, which was hanging off the banisters, and her red boots, which were by the door, and stuffed them into the back of a cupboard. She heard Bruce greet the visitors. There was an old man in overalls with a girl around Jon’s age and a round, jolly couple.

“You must be Jon’s godparents. We heard you moved in and thought we’d say hello. My name’s Cobb Brandon and this is my granddaughter, Kathy.” 

“Mrs Tracy Thomas, pleased to meet you, and this is my husband, Charlie.”

Bruce extended his hand. “Bruce… Penny. Please, come in.”

“This must be your lovely wife!” said Mr Brandon, kissing Diana on each cheek before making his way to the living room.

Diana hung back and whispered to Bruce, “Do we give them tea? There is no kettle.”

“Yeah, because this isn’t Europe.”

“So, how do you make it?”

Bruce shrugged. “There’s juice in the fridge. I’ll get it.”

Bruce went into the kitchen and Diana turned to see Tracy Thomas observing her. They sat down together.

“So, how long have you two been married?”

“Uh – th – two years?”

“Oh, is that so? I would have thought it was more.”

She should have made it at least five years. They had been friends for over a decade, after all. “Yes, well – we’ve been together for much longer.”

Bruce returned, supporting a tray of six glasses of orange juice on one hand in a manner than was reminiscent of Alfred. He looked curious, as though he had heard snatches of their conversation. Diana helped him hand out the glasses, and as he gave her the second-to-last one, she said, “Thanks, honey.”

Bruce smirked out of the side of his mouth and Diana had to bite the inside of her lip to stop herself laughing.

“Where’s Jon?” asked Kathy.

“I’ll go and get him,” said Bruce.

His hands brushed Diana’s waist as he manoeuvred himself back around her. The blood rose to her cheeks and she hoped it didn’t show.

The neighbours asked how they were getting on with the farm and Diana admitted that they weren’t. They were feeding the animals and cleaning the stalls as per Jon’s instructions, but neither of them had any experience in farming, and they both had to travel for work. They would probably sell the animals and rent out the land.

“I’ll go round with you and show you what needs doing, if you like,” said Cobb Brandon. “Would be a real shame to close this place down.”

Bruce came in with Jon, who greeted everyone in a small voice and seated himself on the ottoman in the corner. His eyes still looked a little red. Condolences were expressed and they talked vaguely about Clark and Lois, and how they had got to know them.

After the drinks were finished, Mr Brandon took Bruce out to show him how to work the combine harvester, and Kathy scurried home to do her chores. The Thomases left soon after to pick their children up from soccer practise. 

Jon stayed where he was, staring into space. Diana thought back to when she had been a child and how the Amazons had been with her. Outside of her lessons and physical training, they had told a lot of stories.

“Let me tell you about the time I fought a chimera.”

Jon perked up. Diana described how a chimera had mysteriously been released onto the National Mall. She had wrestled all three of its heads into submission before gifting it to the zoo. There it had been well cared for and had not made a complaint against the hundreds of ogling eyes and high walls, until one day it had unleashed its fiery breath upon the crowds–

Jon had spaced out again. Diana waved at him. “Hello, there?”

“Mmm. What’s a chimera?”

A large and a small figure silently appeared in the doorway. It was Bruce, with Damian. Jon’s face brightened.

“Look who turned up to see you,” said Bruce.

Jon leapt up and almost threw his arms around Damian but at the last second thought better of it. Damian presented Jon with a tiny bat-shaped memory stick. “Since we’re practically brothers now, I’m allowing you to have this.”

Jon picked it up. “What is it?”

“The Batfamily criminal database.”

“WOW!”

“ _You’re_ allowing him?” repeated Bruce. Damian pouted and Jon’s expression fell. Bruce tutted. “Go on, then.”

Jon gave another shriek of delight and plugged the stick into his tablet. A purple and grey login window popped up, and Damian reached over to type in the access code. Jon looked happier than Diana had seen him since – well, since his parents had died.

Perhaps Bruce had been right from the start: he should have adopted Jon by himself and taken him to live at Wayne Manor. He had twenty years of experience in raising orphans and several older children who would be good company for Jon. Diana had none of it. She went out onto the porch, leant against the railings and looked out across the lawn.

No one would have been surprised if Clark had made Bruce Jon’s sole guardian, but for some reason he had chosen her too. He had entrusted her with the person he loved most in the world, and she could not deny his last wish.

“That’s not the full version of the database, but they don’t need to know that,” said Bruce from behind her. Diana didn’t reply. “You all right?”

“Do you know, I’ve never spent time with children? Not even when I was a child myself. I was the first and only child born to the Amazons. I don’t know what they need or what they like. I don’t know how to be a mother.”

Bruce chuckled softly and said, “He’s not a baby. You don’t need to feed him or change his diapers. At his age, he mostly needs someone to have his back – and occasionally give him a kick up the rear. You’re… really good at that.”

Diana turned around and came face to face with him. There was a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. She broke his gaze and lightly kissed his cheek.

A sudden bang shook the glass pane of the door. Bruce charged into the hallway and swiped a large black gun from Damian’s hands. A peach-coloured vase lay shattered on the floor. Diana went inside and her hand met with sticky red paint on the inner door handle.

“Found it in the back of the closet,” mumbled Damian.

Jon came to see what was going on, still holding his tablet. “Oh, that’s my mum’s paintball gun. She was really into it at one time.”

“I don’t care – you don’t play with these things,” growled Bruce.

“How much was the vase?” asked Damian. “I shall replace it.”

Jon shook his head. “It was ugly anyway. Someone gave it to my mum and dad as a wedding present. Mum said she hoped it would break so she could throw it away.”

Bruce snorted. “Think that was Black Canary. Don’t think she’d mind either.”

Jon surveyed the coat closet, which had muddy boots and scuffed jackets spilling out of it, carrier bags piled onto hooks and shelves crammed with dusty boxes. “Guess a lot of this stuff can go.”

They made three piles: things that could be thrown away, things that could be sold and things that could be stored for later. Jon wasn’t keen on keeping Clark’s smart office coat and hat, and Diana ended up threatening to take them herself so she could gift them back to him on his 18th birthday. 

There wasn’t much she was willing to part with, even the most trivial things, like grocery receipts and pocket combs. Their presence made it somehow believable that Lois would once more park up in the driveway or that Clark’s warm, sure voice would come sounding through the hall. She stared at the first page of a notebook full of shorthand for a full ten minutes before Bruce prised it off her and put it in the inside pocket of his own coat.

Damian wasn’t allowed to keep the paintball gun, but Bruce and Jon let him have a space helmet with an in-built breathing apparatus. He refused to do anything helpful, instead declaring that anything that could not be used as a weapon might as well be thrown out, so Bruce took him back to Gotham for his tuition.

Diana and Jon moved onto the cabinet in the living room. There were several opened half-empty bottles of liquor in the back of one compartment which had to go. Most of the unopened ones could go too, since neither she nor Bruce would drink them and they would be no good by the time Jon was old enough to drink.

“Not that one,” said Diana, seeing Jon about to put a bottle of unopened vodka in the garbage bag. “That won’t go bad.”

Jon abruptly turned back and shoved the bottle back into the cabinet. It crashed against some wine glasses, splintering them all at once.

“You need to learn to control your strength.”

Jon turned red. “It comes and goes. I can’t help it. It’s because I’m half Kryptonian and half human.”

“That’s not an excuse. Today it is just some glass, but one day it could be a life.”

Jon looked like he was about to cry and Diana felt awful. He had Clark’s heart with all of its sensitivity but none of its experience. She squeezed his hand. “You can learn to control it and you will. I will show you how.”

Diana sourced a huge bag of paintballs and three kites from their garbage pile. She took Jon outside, reeled out a kite and dropped a few paintballs into his hand.

“The aim of the game is to hit the kite with paint but not to hit it so hard that it breaks.”

The first one that Jon threw missed the kite entirely, and the second hit the kite but bounced off it without breaking. So did the third and the fourth.

“This isn’t possible! You need the gun,” said Jon.

“ _You_ don’t need a gun,” Diana replied. She took a paintball for herself and threw it like a dart. It hit the cross of the kite, splattering it with red. 

“When I was growing up, we used birds and arrows for this. Birds move a lot more than a kite. You had to take the bird down without killing it.” Jon looked horrified. Diana hastily added, “They weren’t too badly hurt.”

Jon tried again and again, growing ever more frustrated, but Diana wouldn’t let him give up. She lowered the target and the paintball tore through the upper left wing, staining it with orange. Diana took a new kite, raised it a little more and he threw another. It hit the vertical bar and broke.

Jon whooped and danced on the spot. Diana suddenly noticed that Bruce was watching them from outside the barn. She hadn’t seen him fly in. Jon took some more turns, alternately hitting and missing the kite. Bruce came up behind them with the paintball gun and shot at the kite, also hitting it but not breaking it.

“You’re cheating!” cried Jon. “We’re not allowed to use that.”

“No, Damian isn’t allowed to use it,” said Bruce. Jon grinned. 

They collected the kites and the paintballs that were still intact, and went into the house.

“Not too bad at this after all, are you?” Bruce said in Diana’s ear. “Mum.”

She gave him a nudge. “Don’t call me that.”


	3. Bargaining

They had finally finished clearing matters with officials and residents two hours after the disaster had been averted. Victor and the Lanterns took off through boom tubes, Barry was gone in the next second and Arthur made his own way to the nearby shore. Diana got into Bruce’s plane so they could pick Jon up from Wayne Manor and return to the farm together.

“You should have supported the rock face from the bottom.”

“You said it was stable from the bottom.”

“There was a second fault underground. The scanner didn’t pick it up.”

“Well.”

“The important thing is that we evacuated everyone. I’ll cover the households that don’t have insurance.”

Neither of them said what they both knew: it wouldn’t have gone half as badly if Superman had been there. A hundred homes wouldn’t have been crushed by a sliding mass of rock if he had been there.

On a Gotham rooftop, Jon clambered into the back of the Flying Fox with a tower of various shaped food containers packed with pizzas, spaghetti carbonara, BLT sandwiches and burritos. He had made sure that Alfred had cooked to his taste rather than Bruce’s this time.

“I decided I’m going on the school trip. Kathy and Alan said I have to. It’s at the end of the week.”

Bruce grunted in acknowledgement.

“But you won’t do anything dangerous while I’m gone, will you? Not landslide kinda dangerous. I mean alien invasion kinda dangerous.”

Jon spoke so cheerfully that his question almost caught Diana off guard.

“We can’t promise that, sweetie,” she said. There was silence from the back, but the rear-view mirror showed him hanging his head. “But I certainly don’t plan on it. I have other ideas – transporting the goats to the Rockies, like you suggested, so they can live out their days happily and not end up in Cobb’s goat pie.”

Jon laughed at that, but after a moment he said, “I guess we’re really not staying on the farm.”

“No,” said Bruce. “It’s not practical.”

“So, where are we moving to?”

Diana glanced at Bruce. They hadn’t discussed it at all since the Justice League meeting. “That will be another task for this weekend.”

The next evening Bruce helped Jon pack his bag for his trip, insisting that he should carry a full face mask in his clothing at all times in case he needed to disguise himself. While Jon grumbled, Diana emailed a prospective tenant for the farm. As if it wasn’t enough that his family was gone, they were taking him away from his home too. But that would only last until he was old enough to live by himself.

It gave Diana an idea, and she shared it with Bruce after they waved Jon off on the school bus.

“We’re clearing out a lot of the old, but why don’t we prepare for the new? If Jon’s going to return to this place when he’s an adult, we can make it somewhere that he’ll really want to live when he’s 18. Or when he has a family of his own.”

They walked back to the house.

“I can get Wayne Renovations in this weekend.”

“No! It will be personal. We’ll do it ourselves.”

Bruce made a pot of coffee and, while they waited for it to brew, they decided it was more realistic to only do up Jon’s room. They could strip the rabbit-themed wallpaper and the old carpet, clear out the toys that he had long stopped playing with and make it modern and grown-up.

“And then where to?” asked Diana. The three weeks on the Kent farm had flown by, but they had been exhausting. There was no use in postponing the decision any longer.

Bruce poured out the coffee. “I’m sticking to what I said before. But I won’t make him a robin. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Good.”

“So you agree that he should live with me?”

Diana wanted to say yes, but there was something about the idea that bothered her that she hadn’t quite been able to place. Jon would always stand out from Bruce’s boys and the rest of them, both in temperament and in a more fundamental way.

“I’m not going to forget who he is. He’s the son of Superman.”

“Actually, that is what concerns me.”

“What?”

Diana clenched her fists. “That you’ll treat him the way you did Clark – like he was a wild beast at a zoo that had to be watched and controlled. Jon is kind, like his father. He deserves your trust. He needs it now more than ever.”

Bruce reeled against the counter. “I did trust Clark.”

“You had a funny way of showing it sometimes.”

He stared at her for a full second, then dropped his empty mug into the sink with a crash.

“Then we haven’t resolved this.” He swept out of the kitchen.

Diana left him to sulk and got on with moving things out of Jon’s room. She had a feeling he had gone out, probably back to Gotham. It hurt that he didn’t seem to want to be there, especially when having him and Jon around was something she treasured. She would miss them. Perhaps she’d been looking too hard for a reason for Jon not to live with Bruce. It was selfish of her.

The window in Jon’s room was large and overlooked the side of the house, and below was soft turf. Only the branches of the large tree on one side of the window pane got in the way of her moving furniture out of it. She still had to dismantle the bed and the wardrobe before flying them out.

The dresser was taken out in one piece, with all its contents, but she let it fall a few inches above the ground. It swayed and creaked, and several of the drawers slid open. A piece of pink card flurried out from underneath the bottom drawer.

“Careful with that. It’s an antique.”

Bruce was standing nearby. Behind him in the distance, parked on the road, was a large black removal van with a ‘Wayne Enterprises’ logo stamped on the side.

“What, 200 years old? It’s a baby.”

He bent down, picked up the pink card and frowned at it. Diana landed next to him to see what it was.

 

  | 1 year | 5 years | 10 years | 25 years | 40 years | Never | **Prize**  
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---  
Confession |   | ~~C~~ |  C |   | L |   | 20$  
Kiss |   | ~~C~~ |  L / C |   |   |   | 50$  
Get together |   | ~~C~~ |  C |   |   | L | fancy date  
Sleep together |   | ~~C~~ |  C |   |   | L | 100$  
Marry |   |   |   | C |   | L | 2nd hnymoon  
Have kids |   |   |   | C |   | L | name ch. 2  
  
She chuckled. “What is that? A game of theirs?”

“Looks like a bet.” Bruce pocketed the card. “I brought a few new pieces for the room. Want to see?”

In the removal van was a gold four poster bed and a roll of carpet in a black and white geometric pattern as well as various ornamental pieces like a pair of lamps and a huge mirror. Diana wasn’t sure that the art deco style was a good fit for the farmhouse, but since they were making a change, it was better to go all out than to do a half-hearted job.

Bruce repainted the empty room while Diana moved the new furniture into the house and decided which of the old pieces to keep. She found a drawer full of toy figurines in Jon’s night-stand and tipped them out onto the grass. Among them were six Justice League members. They were certainly the most played with: the paint was worn on the edges, some of them were bent out of shape or had parts missing. She flew to the window of Jon’s room to show Bruce.

“You should not be doing this for me when there are lives to be saved!” she cried in her best sanctimonious Superman impression, waving the figurine of Clark. Then she held up the one of Bruce and said gruffly, “I’m the fucking Batman, I’ll do whatever I want.”

Bruce snickered, shook his head and went back to rolling a section of the wall. Diana went to him and lowered the arm that was holding the roller. “I am sorry for what I said earlier. That was unkind.”

“It wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t always a good friend to Clark, but I knew he was the best of us. You have to believe that.”

There was a spot of paint on Bruce’s brow. Diana reached up to wipe it and his eyes widened briefly before he saw the stain on her hand.

“I do. And he thought the same of you. Nothing you said or did could make him think any less of you.”

“Yeah, he was a real ray of sunshine.”

“I miss that.”

“Me too.” Bruce linked his fingers through hers. “Come with me. Let’s go to that place. To remember him.”

Diana let him lead her down the stairs and out of the house. Wherever it was they were going, they needed to take some time for them, away from the Justice League and from Jon. Their bond with Clark had been a unique one. One corner of the triangle was missing, and they felt it and did not know what to do with what remained.

They walked through the main street and out through the other side of the town, when dusk began to fall. Bruce didn’t let go of her hand and she didn’t pull away. Diana suddenly understood where they were. A wide river carved out a path below the road, among thick vegetation, and the drum of water on rock could be heard in the distance.

A dirt path took them to the cave behind the Devil’s Falls. There was just enough light left in the day that they could see the three engravings on the wall, symbolising Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Diana traced her finger over the S shape.

“I knew he was going to the Black Vault.” There was a crack in Bruce’s voice. Diana looked at him. His face was full of anguish. “I had surveillance on it. I was worried he was out to destroy Belle Reve in the process of going after the Eradicator and Cyborg Superman. He said he could handle it. He said he’d call if he needed help.”

Diana blanched. “He did call. I – I was too late. I was wrapping something up. If I’d gone right away–”

“Barry was there before you and there was nothing he could have done. It’s just as well he didn’t get into the facility or he’d be gone too. Only I could have found out about the bomb.” He sank onto a boulder and tore at his hair. “I prepared for everything – everything – what the fuck was it all for? I failed Clark. I failed Jon.”

He covered his face with his hands but Diana could tell by the shuddering of his chest that he was crying. She sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him. “If it is not my fault, then it is not yours either. Please, Bruce.”

“I don’t care that he didn’t want my help. I should have done it anyway. I knew more than he did. I could have stopped them. I could have saved them.”

Tears were falling down Diana’s face too, thick and fast. “But he didn’t let us… he didn’t let us.”

They clung to each other as their sobs died down and their cheeks dried. Bruce’s mouth pressed against Diana’s head, then his head dropped to kiss her shoulder. His lips lingered on her skin. She ran her hand over the stubble of his cheek and through his hair. She waited for him to pull away but he didn’t.

“Bruce?”

He kissed her shoulder again, then moved up to kiss her neck. Her other hand rested on his chest and found his heart pounding beneath it. He kissed her jaw, then her lips. She opened her mouth and let his tongue caress hers. She pushed deeper and ran her hands over his torso, grasping the folds of his shirt, but realising how far his back was arched, that he was struggling to stay upright, she broke away.

They panted and searched each other’s eyes. Bruce’s were at once vulnerable and unfathomable. The taste of him tingled in Diana’s mouth and she reached in for more. Bruce broke away this time and rested his forehead against hers.

“What are we doing?” he whispered.

 _Consoling ourselves_ , thought Diana. _Trying to fill the void. Giving in to what we’ve always wanted but never dared to ask for._

“You don’t think we should?”

He looked at the three symbols on the cave wall and back at her. “It’s just us now. I don’t want to regret anything about you.”

He put his hands on her hips and stroked them with his thumbs. She sighed, leant into him and slipped her arms under his shoulders, gripping them from behind. “Let’s go back,” she murmured into his neck.

“Yeah.”

She lifted him and flew out of the cave and over the town. The farm was dark when they arrived and Diana landed through the window of Jon’s room, which they had forgotten to close. As soon as Bruce’s feet touched the floor, he pushed her hair from her face and kissed her.

They stumbled across the hallway, into the large room at the end and fell onto the bed. It was Clark and Lois’ room. But Bruce was kneeling over her and unbuttoning his shirt, so Diana thought no more of it. The next moment her hands were all over his naked body and his lips were on her skin. They soothed and pleasured and devoured each other almost until the dawn light broke.

Diana woke to the warmth of the late morning and Bruce untangling himself from her arms.

“I’ve got to check on the JLA,” he said, climbing into his suit.

She rolled onto her back and watched him dress. It had been a beautiful night and she felt calmer and more rooted than she had in a long time. She smiled, mostly to herself, but it was mirrored on Bruce’s face as he put on his cowl.

By the time she was up, Bruce had left. She started assembling the new wardrobe suite, but hadn’t got very far before her JL communicator beeped. It was Arthur.

“Could you give me a hand with a whale shark, Diana? I’m at 24° 31' N, 122° 38' E.”

It was somewhere off the coast of China. Diana tightened the screw on a joint and tossed her tools onto the floor. “Coming, Arthur.”

A 30-foot spotted grey creature was rising out of the sea along the coast of a tiny island. Blood was streaming from the top of its body where its fin should have been and it was writhing from side to side. Arthur set it down in the shallow water and Diana helped him hold it still.

“Thanks. I found this fellow halfway down being eaten alive by other fish. Didn’t see the bastards who got him into this state. I would’ve sorted him out myself but I’m supposed to be holding a council in ten minutes.”

Diana stroked the shark’s wide, flat nose. It seemed to relax, but perhaps it was too weak to do anything else. “It’s fine. I wasn’t busy.”

Arthur held up what looked like a flexible, triangular piece of rubber. “Fin prosthetic – a new invention.”

“Very nice.”

He rubbed a balm into the wound, which seemed to make the shark drowsy, then threaded a stringy green thread through a needle.

“How is everything working out for you?” he asked, while he stitched on the prosthetic. “Living with Bruce and Jon, and all that.”

“It’s going well! Very well. It’s hard for all of us, of course, but it’s going well.”

Arthur frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I just mean that it’s going better than expected. So far.”

The frown cleared from his face and his eyebrows rose. “You slept with Bruce, didn’t you?”

“No, we–” she began, but Arthur didn’t looked like he was about to be fooled. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“And? Are you getting together or are you just messing around?”

“I… don’t really know.”

“You’d better figure it out. You’re raising a kid together. Jon is already dealing with a lot more than anyone of his age ever should and he doesn’t need your drama making his life harder. Unless you’re really, really serious about this, I suggest you draw some boundaries and stick to them.”

She didn’t want to hear it, but Arthur was right. Jon would be back in a couple of days and they would have to pull themselves together. Or apart.


	4. Anger

Dick and Damian were covering Bruce’s night patrol, as they had done often in recent weeks. And he – he would be in Hamilton with Diana. Jon was still on his trip, so they would be alone together. It was no valid reason to be away from Gotham but his guilt was surpassed by a deep thrill at the thought of holding her in his arms again.

His phone flashed to tell him that he had a voice message. It was from Diana.

“Hey, I’ve been taking down an illegal fishing vessel. It was a strange case, so I’m stopping over in London to report it to the International Maritime Organization. I’ll stay over at my old flat and be back tomorrow. See you then.”

Her tone was very matter-of-fact. Perhaps that night hadn’t meant to her what it had to him. Perhaps she had not meant to convey anything more than sympathy and comfort. The Amazons were more casual and fluid in how they treated love and sex. With a sinking heart, Bruce headed to the Batcave to tell Dick and Damian that he would be doing his night patrol after all.

The gang of thieves he’d been tracking had dispersed in stolen cars and motorbikes. Most of them were no longer in Gotham. He went after the two that remained, barring the exits of the building that harboured them and cutting the wires on the vehicles that were parked outside. Experience told him that the rest of the thieves would return sooner or later, and it was more efficient for him to wait for them in Gotham than to go on a chase.

Once the thieves were unconscious and the police were on their way, Bruce went to the manor for a few hours of sleep and a meal. It was quite late in the day when he arrived at the Kent farm and Diana was already there, putting the last touches to Jon’s room. She smoothed out the new silk coverlet and arranged the six Justice League figurines in a semi-circle on the dresser.

“It looks good.”

She gave him a small smile. He wanted to go to her and kiss her, but the doubt that had crept into his mind stopped him.

“I’m glad you’re back. About the other night,” she said hesitantly. “I was talking about it with Arthur. I hope you don’t mind, but he guessed that something else was going on. He reminded me that we have to think of Jon first, even when he is not here, like now. This thing between us… we can’t just mess around.”

“Of course.” said Bruce shortly. The phrase ‘messing around’ stung more than he could have thought. “We’re basically done here, anyway. I’ll go to Cobb’s and finalise the rental contract on the back field.”

What should have taken a half hour turned into the entire evening, because Cobb Brandon insisted on Bruce having a drink with him and blathered on about his prize-winning line of cows before they got around to discussing the contract. 

Diana was fast asleep in the guest room when he returned. Her head was buried in the pillow and she was hugging it close to her, though she usually slept on her back with her hands clasped on her stomach like a princess from a fairy tale. He packed up his computer and various other pieces of equipment, and loaded them into his plane.

The Flying Fox landed in the Batcave hangar soon after midnight and Bruce went to straight to his computer to view the footage from the surveillance cameras that he had left at the criminal hideout. The remaining thieves had returned the previous night, but had not left their loot there. They had probably caught wind that their comrades had been arrested. 

He switched to the current scene. Three of them were talking by the downstairs window and one was shining a torch around the frame. It was too foolish a thing to be doing by accident – he was drawing attention to someone outside. What was left in the downstairs room was a basic grimy couch next to a heavy shelving unit that displayed knick-knacks such as empty plastic sacks, screwdrivers and batteries, but also a couple of sheathed knives. The sheaths were embossed with the letters FFS.

They weren’t a petty gang of thieves. They were working for the biggest crime organisation in the city – the False Face Society.

The men walked out of the building, but did not lock the front door. They turned left down the street, illuminated by the torchlight and turned into the next block, out of range of Bruce’s cameras.

“Good night, Master Bruce,” came Alfred’s dry voice behind him. A mug of steaming coffee appeared at Bruce’s right elbow. “I was not expecting you.”

“I was not expecting to be here.”

“May I remind you that Master Dick is on your patrol tonight? I was just about to check on him, but now that you are here…”

Bruce brought up the satellite navigation map and clicked on the active tracker that was sewn into Dick’s custom-made Batman suit. The map showed an electric blue dot on the building opposite the criminal hideout.

“Damian’s not with him?”

“He has a meeting with the Teen Titans. Master Dick offered to do the patrol alone.”

“He is not doing the patrol. He has gone after my case!”

“Perhaps his patrol led him to your case, sir.”

So Dick had seen the gang’s activities that night, but he wouldn’t know much about who they were. Bruce had not thought to give him a report. Too much of something else had been on his mind. Dick didn’t know that some of the same gang had been arrested, meaning the others would be much more alert. He didn’t know that the building had been cleared of loot or that they were members of the FFS.

Bruce switched back to the cameras just in time to see three motorbikes zooming around the corner. They disappeared, one after the other, into the alley beside the hideout. He had seen those bikes before – the gang had returned, but why so soon?

At the corner of the screen a pitch black shadow flew over the street to the upper floor of the hideout. Dick was going in. He thought the building was unoccupied.

Bruce jammed on the headset and turned on the microphone. “NO DICK! IT’S A TRAP!”

The upper-floor camera showed that Dick had started towards the window ledge, but at the same time footsteps came up the stairs along with the flash of a torchlight. The street view showed one of the men waiting on the street with a gun and another getting back onto his bike. Dick swung out of the window. The gun fired and the motorbike gave chase.

Bruce jumped up and stripped his day clothes down to his Batsuit. “Get Dick to safety!” he shouted at Alfred, who had already taken over the headset and the controls. “I’m going after them.”

Dick lost them in no time, and by the time Bruce reached him he had flipped the chase so that he was throwing shurikens at the criminals as they fled down lit streets. One had been knocked off his motorbike and was lying in the road with a bloody gash. Bruce helped Dick take down other two. At sunrise they searched the unconscious men, confiscated their belongings and called Commissioner Gordon.

“You shouldn’t have gone after them. I was on their case.” Bruce checked himself. “I should have warned you not to go after them.”

Dick shrugged. “Worked out in the end though, didn’t it?”

It was nothing to Dick, nothing he couldn’t handle, but there would never be a day when Bruce wouldn’t feel a little responsible for him. He had put his mentee in unnecessary danger, even after a brutal reminder that the strongest and best were not invulnerable.

They parted ways – Dick to Bludhaven and Bruce to Hamilton.

The farmhouse was dark and silent. Bruce switched on the light in the hallway and saw Jon’s duffel bag and rucksack on the floor. He tore a hand through his hair. Of course – Jon was back from his trip. They were supposed to have picked him up from the school that morning.

“Jon?” he called. There was no answer.

He searched every room in the house but there was no Jon and no Diana. He felt awful that he’d forgotten, but Dick had been the priority that morning. Even then, he wasn’t used to handling mundane events like school trips. Alfred managed all of that sort of thing at the manor.

There was a noise from the hall and Diana came in, wearing her armour and an exhausted, sombre expression.

“Where have you been?” asked Bruce.

“Stopping a missile colliding with a manned spacecraft. Where’s Jon?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t you pick him up from school?”

“No, I had to leave. It was an emergency. Where have you been?”

“Also dealing with an emergency.”

“So he came home but left again,” said Diana, gesturing to the bags. “I’ll go to the school and round to the neighbours.”

She left on foot. Bruce went through each of the fields and searched the barn to no avail. Diana had not returned to the house and nor had she called, so he assumed that her search around town had not been successful.

He rang Damian. “Have you seen Jon?”

“Nope.”

“Get the Teen Titans searching Gotham and Metropolis for him.”

“Please. The Teen Titans is a serious organisation.”

“Superboy is missing,” said Bruce through clenched teeth. “He may be upset and he may do something foolish. If he gets hurt, gets someone else hurt or gets discovered, we’re going to have an extremely serious situation on our hands.”

Damian huffed. “Fine.”

Bruce switched his mind to Jon’s perspective. Jon had probably walked all the way home alone, feeling abandoned and embarrassed. Upon finding the house deserted, he had possibly broken down and gone in search of something that made him feel closer to his dead parents.

There was one more place that had been a home to Superman and his family. Bruce got into his plane and took off to the Arctic.

The Fortress of Solitude was the sort of place that looked like it would give its occupants away by echo but the sound was somehow lost between the shards of ice. Bruce pressed on to the central chamber, looking for anything that might be a sign that Jon was there. But at the end of the corridor he saw Diana. She was standing very still, watching something and someone within the chamber. A man’s voice could be heard but it sounded like a recording.

A life-sized hologram of Superman was displayed on one side of the chamber and a small boy in a red cape was sitting at its feet, gazing up at it.

“… on your chest to be a hero, son. Just be one when it counts. Remember what we spoke about…”

It was a memory of Clark, reeling off the lessons that he had taught his son in his lifetime.

Diana’s cheeks were stained with tears. She gave Bruce a mournful sidelong look and made a swift and noiseless bound to Jon’s side. The reel came to an end. Jon buried his head in his arms to avoid looking at her. Diana knelt by him. 

“I’m so, so sorry, Jon.” There was no reply. “That should never have happened.”

“You forgot about me,” came Jon’s muffled reply.

“We thought about you a lot,” said Bruce, striding forwards. “Diana had the idea of giving you a new room. Come back to the farm and you can see it.”

Jon shook his head. “I want to stay here – with – with Dad.”

“How long have you been here, Jon?” asked Diana. Jon shrugged. “Well, perhaps it’s time to get something to eat and have a bath. Don’t you think? We’ll come back to visit Dad another time.”

She nudged his arm from below, and he slowly got to his feet and wiped his face on his sleeves. 

They flew back to the house together. Diana ran the bath while Bruce warmed up one of Alfred’s ready meals. Jon was too tired to be upset, and after he was fed and clean, went to his room for a nap.

Diana came out to the front of the house where Bruce was shaking half-melted ice from his boots. “This is not good enough.”

“What? Me? Or the fact that you don’t bother leaving a message when you leave the planet for the morning?”

Her eyes flashed. “I am here much, much more than you, Bruce, so don’t give me that. And no, I cannot send you a little message when I am flying at two thousand miles an hour. Where were you all that time, anyway?”

“I was–”

“In Gotham? You have an entire team in Gotham for the precise purpose that someone will be there when you cannot!”

“Yes, they are my family! If anything happens to them it is on me. Dick was almost shot last night because he was doing my job, because I have to be _here_.”

“Well, I am doing Clark’s job right now, as a superhero and as a parent. I gave up my old life too, but it was okay because it was more important to focus on Jon. You throw that in my face when you make it very clear that you would rather not be around us.” There was a break in her voice.

“Yeah, I said from the beginning I never wanted this. You wanted this – Clark’s stupid all-American dream out here in this backwater – because you have nothing else in your life.” He went back inside and grabbed his coat. He had gone too far, but he could not keep up the lie that they were living. “It would have been easier if Jon had moved in with me.”

“Easier for who? You, sure. But what about him? You expect your children to be exactly like you, which is why Dick and Jason–” She bit her lip and started again more calmly. “Jon is tomorrow’s Superman, not one of your street orphans.”

“Yeah, you’re right. He’s not one of mine. My kids have to come first.” He threw his coat over his shoulders and marched down the porch steps.

Diana’s voice came quietly after him. “So whose kid is he?”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and constructive criticism are welcome. I can be found on Tumblr @mln-fangirl.


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